It always sounds weird to me when Americans feel the need to modify nouns with "ice". Ice skating, ice hockey. It's just skating and hockey. They're the baseline activities. Any variations get the modifier, like rollerskating or field hockey.

Bondith:It always sounds weird to me when Americans feel the need to modify nouns with "ice". Ice skating, ice hockey. It's just skating and hockey. They're the baseline activities. Any variations get the modifier, like rollerskating or field hockey.

I get the Hockey one. But skating could mean anything. I dont think its modifying, but rather, being more specific.

oOCAKESOo:Bondith: It always sounds weird to me when Americans feel the need to modify nouns with "ice". Ice skating, ice hockey. It's just skating and hockey. They're the baseline activities. Any variations get the modifier, like rollerskating or field hockey.

I get the Hockey one. But skating could mean anything. I dont think its modifying, but rather, being more specific.

Yea. And don't forget the majority of american skating is non-ice. We have less winter than non-winter and plenty of sidewalk. Rinks aren't generally right around the corner, even in winter-sport heavy areas.

oOCAKESOo:Bondith: It always sounds weird to me when Americans feel the need to modify nouns with "ice". Ice skating, ice hockey. It's just skating and hockey. They're the baseline activities. Any variations get the modifier, like rollerskating or field hockey.

I get the Hockey one. But skating could mean anything. I dont think its modifying, but rather, being more specific.

Smackledorfer:Yea. And don't forget the majority of american skating is non-ice. We have less winter than non-winter and plenty of sidewalk. Rinks aren't generally right around the corner, even in winter-sport heavy areas.

We have a few rinks around here, but they're only kept up during the time when it's guaranteed to stay below freezing--so only a few months a year. We even have an old Olympic training track, which is a lot of fun. Mostly the only people who use the rinks are hockey players and little kids, who come with their parents and stagger around for a while before everybody gives up and goes home.

Ice skating is pretty serious exercise if you actually know how to do it, so who the hell wants to do that?

Skates are not "flat" and his approach is incorrect. Skates - hockey and figure - are ground on a convex radius front to back of anywhere from 6' to 13' or more. Speed skates are flatter but still are ground with a rocker of say 6 to more than 10 meters. Some skates have multiple main radii and where the radius/radii high point is depends on the skate/skater preference.

Then there is the hollow. The bottom of the blade is not flat, when looking at the skate head on. It is ground concave on a radius from as small as 3/8" to 1 1/2" or more . There are even some nontraditional hollow forms that are a combo of square and radius to attempt to get the best attributes of both shallow and deep radius grinds - glide vs edge bite. Ability, weight, position,skating style all play into hollow selection.

So is it possible that less than 10% of the calculated L x W area of the skate is in contact with the ice at any given time. uh.. yes.

The other thing is, what about the force applied as you push? Would that not have the impact of increased pressure as well.... I mean it's not like you're just standing still. That coupled with the point above about how they overestimate the amount of surface contact of the blade could make a difference.

Also, friction would slowly heat up the blade which then adds the hot knife through butter effect. You can definitely tell a small difference from when you first step on the ice to a minute or so in.